What Am I Afraid Of?

What am i afraid of? What scares me the most? What do I not want to admit to anyone?

I’m afraid of the embarrassing walk of shame. Of stating something big and living in the shadow of it.

I’m uncomfortable with being large, bold, and loud. I’m afraid of being noticed. Of standing out of the crowd, but yet it is one thing I want. I do want noticed and so does everyone. We want at least one or two others to notice our uniqueness or our special beauty. That dreamy eyed guy or the hot one across the room. Yeah I want that. If someone introduced me to Enrique Iglesias, I would be afraid to say hello. It scares me. If someone promoted my book and people were lining up for me to sign it, that scares me.

I’m afraid of the performance. If I am called on to state exactly what I believe and why, I get mushy and wishy-washy, because it scares me to boldly state my case.

Intense focus, “this is what I believe and why” scares me. Not having scientific proof or someone else’s studies to back me up is scary. Obscurity and generality are easy. I kinda sorta feel this way. In my opinion it looks like this. Nailing it down, that’s difficult.

The thought of limiting myself to one endeavor the rest of my life terrifies me. The thought of being trapped is the same.

There are those who are focused and do one thing well. Then we, the scattered, enjoy a variety of events happening at one time. I often have 3 or more books with different genres started all at once. I finish them, because I like the variety. When I am asked to pick only one activity that I would want to devote myself to, I come up blank.

Malcolm Gladwell speaks of being taught to “Do many things and none of them well.”

Journalist Malcolm Gladwell has thought about stereotypes. Growing up in Ontario to an English father and Jamaican mother, he became one of the top sprinters in his age-group and he noticed that a surprising number of the most successful runners in Canada were from Jamaica. It got him wondering about the relationship between race and athletic success, and he’s pretty sure his initial ideas were wrong.